helping students understand the true costs of higher education

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We’re excited to announce that knowyourcollegecosts.org is back up and running! We lost the domain name for a couple of years and have been operating solely on our wordpress site. We’ve got the domain name back and are getting ready to restart our regular posting. Please check back frequently as we restart our discussion of issues related to the costs of higher education.

Paying for college has become a growing struggle for students, especially those working their way through school. Recent studies show that working more than 20 hours a week negatively affects grades and the odds of graduating. However, studies also show that students who work 10-15 hours a week are more likely to receive higher grades and graduate. 18% of students who took more than 4 years to graduate said it was because they took fewer classes in order to work. Temple University has implemented a new program aimed at reducing student debt, called Fly in 4. The goal of this program is have students graduate in 4 years by giving students resources necessary to meet the 4 year goal. In addition, 500 of the neediest students in each class receive a grant of $4000 a year if they agree to work no more than 15 hours a week. This grant money supposedly covers what the student would make if he/she was to work 30 hour weeks. Students enrolled in this program must meet with their academic advisor once a semester, register for classes that pertain to their major, and complete 30 credits a year. If students meet all the requirements but still do not graduate in 4 years due to an unavailability of necessary course, Temple would allow students to complete the courses needed free of tuition.

We’ll be headed to Harrisburg tomorrow for the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Pennsylvania (AICUP) Student Aid Advocacy Day. Please follow our live posts on Twitter (@CSC_Cubed)! We’re asking for more aid for middle income students – here’s our advocacy letter:

The rising cost of college is no myth, including compensation for inflation, the cost of tuition and fees at a public university is now 4 times what it was 40 years ago. While government aid covers some of this burden, students still must resort to taking massive student loans to cover the cost of a higher education. But can the government afford to do more?

11.1 million students attended public colleges and universities in 2014, taking into account undergraduates and graduate students. States spent $73 billion funding higher education in 2014 leaving students with $64.3 billion in tuition, which comes out to $5,793 per student on average. In 2000, states spent $51.9 billion which left the 8.6 million students with $21.5 billion in tuition, coming out to an average cost of $2,500 per student.

Bernie Sanders has proposed his “College for All” plan that would aim at paying for this $73 billion tuition bill by increasing federal funding by $47 billion and state funding another $23 billion. The federal government would pay $2 for every $1 that state governments spend on tuition at public universities. In addition to drastic tuition aid, the plan calls for cutting student interest rates to about 2% for undergraduates. The cost of this plan could potentially be up to $750 billion over the course of 10 years.

Sanders plans to fund the program by imposing a 0.5% fee on stock trades, a 0.1% fee on bonds, and a 0.005% fee on derivatives. Warren Gunnels claims that this would raise up to $300 billion a year, citing a University of Massachusetts report, whereas Steve Rosenthal, a Tax Policy Center senior fellow, reported that it would only raise about $51 billion.

The expanded access to low cost higher education would be revolutionary, with far reaching societal and economic ramifications.

The price to go to college has risen over the years. The question is: “Why?” Sure, inflation has to do with it, but what else is causing how much we pay to increase? While some people at universities may be overpaid, there are other more widespread causes as to why college tuition is rising. Colleges seek to only benefit themselves from their students’ hard work. This is done by having students attend the university, graduate and get a good paying job, then make generous donations back to their Alma Mater. Colleges have the best chance of achieving this by attracting as many students to their university as possible. Colleges are simply in a war over who has the most students because it gives them a greater chance to graduate students who will go on to have prestigious positions in life which the college can proudly say they have produced. Colleges compete to attract students by producing more that is outside of the classroom. Colleges have lost their focus on their original purpose of educating people at a higher level so that those people might be able to apply for a better job to have a better life. Colleges nowadays are more selfish by wanting to be the best with their athletic facilities and student services in order for students to come to their institution. The cost of college for students has also increased due to government funding’s inability to keep pace with the rising cost to attend an institution. The cost of college is due to the fact that colleges are seeking prestige rather than quality education of their students, and put the price on the people who are willing to pay it to go to a reputable school.